Forever and a day
by snip-snippet
Summary: Alice returns to Underland.Getting there alas is more painful than she expects, and the one she most wishes to see is not there waiting for her.A tale of descent into soul-crushing madness and unhoped for salvation,the lost can always be found...


...one needs only to care enough to look.

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Word from the Author:

I know, I know you all hate me because I haven't updated "Some things". I just got a little muddled in that one, what with hating the last chapter I posted, and not knowing exactly how to fix it. And I fell out of love with the original ending I had planned. I think it's pretty much because of some crap that happened in my personal life that really killed my inner romantic for a while there. I am recovering at last, so hopefully this story will get back on track.

I need to reread the whole thing, and think it over a little, and take down that last chapter…. I'm not sure when I'll get around to doing that. Hopefully soon, but I'm not making promises anymore.

In the meantime I'm posting this as a bit of an experiment with some darker themes…well, not much darker…but, yeah. And because I watched this movie again after the Oscars and fell in love with it all over again.

I've been toying with this concept for a while and I finally decided to give it a whirl. I apologies once again if I gave anyone pangs of false hope with this upload. Sorry guys!

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Disclaimer: None of these characters belong to me

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**Ch.1 Down, down, down**

Alice wearily rested her forehead on the cold surface, her hands clutching almost absently at the thick metal bars. She was thinking. Alice sighed, her thoughts had habit of running away with her when she was feeling nervous.

She thought about many things, worrying things mostly, not the least of which was how silly she looked standing outside the great iron gates of the Ascot Estate, in the damp weather, in the middle of the night. All in all, her presence there was strange and would most likely be frowned upon if it were ever to be discovered. Then again, it would be the late hour and the weather that would keep her from discovery.

"It's strange" Alice pondered "how one's point of view shifts in accordance with the surrounding circumstances, especially when it takes a turn for the ridiculous"

Why, she'd faced down a raging queen, who had been quite literally after her head, defeated a murderous 20 foot long Jabberwocky, she'd survived aboard ships crowded with ruffians and unsavory sorts, and more trying yet, she had thrived among politicians, businessmen and Chinese royalty. An iron gate, with bars set so far apart she could squeeze right through, should not prove a hindrance.

Arguably, her plan did involve sneaking in and trespassing on Lord Ascot's property. Alice didn't think the man would be overly upset about this, if anything he would be incredibly surprised to find her skulking through his garden, soaked through and shivering piteously, when he knew for a fact that his protégé was on her way to visit an ailing aunt in Derbyshire. Her presence in his garden would, indeed, be most irregular.

Visiting an aunt. That was what Alice had told him at least. She wasn't completely certain Lord Ascot had believed her. He had stared knowingly at her with his kind brown eyes and had nodded his understanding. Whether he believed that she was going to tend to a sick relative or not, he had accepted that she wanted and needed to leave.

She felt guilty for lying to a beloved friend and teacher, and guiltier still for lying to her mother and sister, but Alice knew that telling the truth in this case was simply not an option. This knowledge did nothing to make her feel any better. This was a train of thought she did not wish to pursue further.

Alice shivered in the cold wet air "Oh Alice, you ought to have made up your mind before coming here, it would have made catching your death of cold a whole lot less likely" she mumbled darkly, flexing her stiff, frozen fingers.

Frustration was building up inside her, bringing with it a bit of warmth. Her mind was firmly set and she was inconveniencing no one but herself with these foolish doubts. How silly she was, getting unnerved by the mere act of passing through a garden at night, when that was but the easiest part.

It seemed to Alice that growing up and maturing and all the supposed accumulated wisdom and experience that came with the passing of the years did nothing but make her doubt herself more and caused her to hesitate. Hardly as useful as advertised, she thought.

Before more thoughts and worries could assail her she squeezed through the frigid bars and into the Ascot Estate. "That was easy" she muttered. Unwanted, a thought slipped through, a memory, Lady Ascot threatening to set dogs on intrusive, unwanted, fluffy, white, visitors. She hoped fervently that there were no dogs around to chase _**her**_.

Alice mustered herself, squaring her shoulders and lifting her chin high in defiance to the cold that made her want to huddle in on herself. She had never been a coward and as long as she had a say in the matter, she never intended to become one. She had a mission to fulfill, a place to reach and a promise to keep, and she was _**quite**_ tired of _**always**_ being late.

Alice frowned, filled with renewed determination and a little bit of residual annoyance: typical that she should always manage to be late in a world where time did not exist.

She was walking on so purposefully now that she was practically marching through the dark scenery, careless and unafraid, when a tree sprung out in front of her suddenly, rudely halting her progress. She glared angrily from stubbed toe to unfeeling tree bark, feeling like the victim of a conspiracy.

It became obvious to Alice now that while picking a moonless night would indeed help hide her from prying eyes, it would also help hide the landscape from _**her**_ eyes. Somehow she had failed to take this into account, it was very vexing.

She resumed walking, albeit at a more sedate and cautious pace. Legs were after all rather important. The terrain was almost completely unfamiliar to her in the darkness, it was very hard to tell the trees apart. Alice remembered the sought after location clearly in her mind, it was her body that kept hindering her by bumping into unexpected obstacles of the wooden, leafy persuasion. It was through sheer stubbornness and desperate determination that she eventually came upon the ancient tree with the great gaping hole at its base, partly concealed by its massive roots.

She dropped to her knees at the edge of the crevice out of sheer exhaustion and relief, she didn't even feel the cold anymore. She peered carefully inside; to her eyes, the darkness within seemed blacker than the darkest shadow of the night and it seemed to be pulling at her, trying to suck her in. Doubts began to rise once more in her mind. Frightful, stomach-knotting "what if"s chased themselves round and round inside her head.

But she was there. There was no turning back. She'd burned her bridges as best as she could and hoped to bring a minimum amount of pain to those she was leaving behind.

It had become apparent to Alice for some time that she'd gotten all she could from this world, she'd answered the waiting questions and made a name for herself, an impressive feat in a world ruled by men and subject to prejudice. She'd travelled as far and as wide as she could and she'd continued her father's legacy and she'd grown up and understood that which she'd always known: what she craved for had no place in this world, limited and crippled as it was by the laws of physics and logic, governed and chocked by the ruthless flow of time.

She had returned here because staying in Underland had felt like running away from her responsibilities, at the time, from duty and things she did not wish to have to face. Now however, she felt like she did not belong anymore. Her sister had a daughter now and both she and her mother were completely immersed in rearing the little one up. What was Alice to them but another burden?

An unmarried aunt, with fading good looks, soon to be considered an old maid. A source of shame. Alice was not naïve enough to believe that her having a career and a steady income did anything to change these facts, in fact, it probably added to the embarrassment.

Neither of the two women ever mentioned any such thing to Alice, but then again, they didn't need to, she noticed the strange looks and the not so hushed voices of society whispering she was "a little odd in the head, that one".

Alice was an anomaly and she was well aware of it, but she was heading to a place where anomalies like her were welcomed, where she had friends who were waiting for her. A pair of strange green eyes, that had an alarming habit of turning vivid orange when their owner got a little too excited, sprang to mind and she smiled a little.

"I'm coming" Alice whispered to no one in particular before standing up, brushing her skirts of dead foliage and mud, and leaping into the void.

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Read and Review if you like, and please, please, please don't kill me for posting this!


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